beautiful day

The weather here was so beautiful today. I packed a picnic lunch and picked Emma up from school then we met some friends at the park for the afternoon. I love days like today :)

Thought I'd share a few of my favorite funny quotes of the day:

After chasing the train at Lakes Park on foot as far as they could, Emma comes running back, completely out of breath and says, "Wow, I just did bootcamp!" Like mother, like daughter :)

Madeline's prayer at bedtime tonight: "Dear God, thank you for help us, for playground for swing" (repeated four times) Amen.

Emma was praying for our new "adopted" Brazilian sister, Brenda. During her prayer she kept stuttering and getting stuck on the word "sister". Emma's like, I pray for our "sis, sis, sis" from the top bunk and Madeline was on the bottom bunk yelling "ter, ter, ter" trying to help Emma along. It's bad when your 2 year old sister is trying to finish your thoughts for you. I guess we can't delay the speech therapy much longer :)

No quotes from Claire today..just a bunch of smiles and some goos and gaas. She loved lying on her blanket in the park all day and rolling around in the grass. The attention from all of Emma's friends wasn't bad, either!

halloween pics

Just a few Halloween pics. Emma was Little Red Riding Hood (her costume was two sizes too small, but she insisted on it anyway), Madeline was a "wobspur" aka lobster, and Claire was unofficially a butterfly. The night was so hectic, we never even put her costume on her. Poor third child. Next year I'll make it up to her with an amazing costume!! This year was the first time we didn't stay home for Halloween. We went to Tracey and Jason's house to trick or treat and then had dinner there afterwards. Lots of Halloween fun!

Wow, I can't believe that it's been almost a month since my last post...I'm such a slacker. Life has been very busy here. The weekend before last we had a family reunion in Jupiter. Ryan was in Palm Springs on a business trip, so my mom came to help with the kids for a few days and then we headed across the state to the big reunion. We had a blast!! It was so much fun to see cousins that I haven't seen in years and the kids had fun meeting so many new family members. It was hectic for Kristin and I, cause we are pretty much the only ones with little kids and babies right now, so our style was kinda cramped for the weekend :) We managed to have a great time even though our hands were FULL! And next year at this time when my sister and I get together, we'll have 6 girls between us. We are quite a spectacle whenever we go out with the whole crew.

Right after I got home from that trip, Ryan surprised me with a last minute trip to Medford for a few days. It was so great to be back. Whenever we are up there I instantly feel like I am home again. I had a great couple of days soaking in the cold weather and the peace and quiet (the big girls stayed home). I spent one whole morning lying on the couch in my bathrobe drinking cofee and reading a book...it was heaven!! It was great to spend time with Becky. I love how we can not see each other for a year and then instantly start where we left off. We got some great shopping in. I think we spent hours in Francesca's...my new favorite store :) I never realized how much better the food is up North...no wonder I was so fat when I lived there, I couldn't stop eating the whole time!!! It was dangerous. I think by the time I left, my clothes barely fit on me. We can't wait to take the girls up for a visit in December...two days just wasn't enough. I'm so thankful that Ryan's parents have a place up there now and hope that means we can get back there more often. Once a year just isn't enough.

Now we're home again and it's taken me two full days of laundry and housework to get this place in some kind of order. The last few weeks have been such a whirlwind of going from one suitcase to the next and I am looking forward to a normal, quiet week at home. Going to the grocery store, making dinner and cleaning actually are sounding good to me right now. I guess with three little kids around, stability is what keeps me sane.

fire safety day

best friends

the schoolgirls

me and my trouble maker :)

Yesterday was fire safety day at Emma's school, so I decided to take all of the girls and make a morning out of it. Madeline was so excited that she got to go to school for the day...she started talking about it and trying to get herself dressed at 6:30 am. She wants to be like her big sister so much:) The girls had lots of fun watching a puppet show and presentation and getting a tour of the big fire truck! Madeline got to sit with the class and shared Emma's mat with her on the floor. Emma was so excited to have her little sister there and she held her arm around Madeline protectively the whole time..it was so sweet. I am so thankful that I am able to stay home with my kids and not miss out on the little things like this. Madeline was much easier to deal with yesterday, by the way. Only a few minor tantrums that were not long lasting. From there, we spent the afternoon at Chick Fil A with some of the girl's friends and we stayed until we wore out our welcome. When the lady starts cleaning your table while your still sitting at it, you know it's time to get out of there. We have a busy weekend coming up with lots of Halloween activities....I can't wait to get the girls dressed up in their costumes!!!

survival mode

Lately, I have been so busy that I feel like my head is spinning. When I sat down to think about what is taking up all of my time, it came to me.........dealing with Madeline and her fifty thousand temper tantrums a day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The past few weeks with her have been pretty rough. She hasn't been feeling well which has no doubt made it worse, but she is just so high maintenance right now. Can anyone say terrible two's?! Everything is a battle. Foods she's always loved she now hates. She walks around the house all day crying that she is hungry and EVERYTHING you try to give her to eat she refuses to touch (or depending on her mood, throws across the room). Bedtime and naptime are and endless battle of her asking for a drink and then refusing it, followed by her asking for her blanky and then refusing it and then crying two minutes later because she doesn't have a drink or a blanky. Do you see where this is going? Everything is pretty much like this all day long. Today at the gym, she begged me to take her potty. So, we go to the bathroom and she wants to do everything but sit on the potty....play with the lockers, look in the showers, wash her hands, etc. So, I take her back to the playroom and the first thing she does is start screaming that she needs to go potty. Hello? I just had you in the bathroom and you refused to go near the toilet. So rather than give in to her, I tell her no and explain that we just tried that and the result is her on the floor kicking and screaming for the next ten minutes. Every now and then we see a little glimpse of her fun, silly personality but there is a lot of a battle of the wills going on in between. Ryan was home with her for a few hours on Sunday and was so burnt out by the time I got home. At least I have him to feel my pain :) I know that I have to stay consistent with her and that this phase will pass, but in the meantime it is so draining. I remember when Emma was two and she would sit in the car and chant "I hate you, I hate you" over and over again in this really mean little voice...thank you God that she outgrew that one!

jammies, fruit snacks and pumpkins oh my!

I'm back! Our internet was down all last week and we've been so busy lately, so I've been a major blog slacker. Today I was able to catch up on reading everyone's blogs...I've missed hearing about what's going on in everyone's lives!! The girls are growing up fast and changing so much...here's what's new with them:

Claire will be four months old on Thursday. She really is the sweetest baby that I've ever seen. She's all smiles and giggles and loves her big sisters so much. She tries "talking" to us all of the time and Emma loves to try and decipher what she thinks Claire is saying. Last week, she started sucking her thumb which is way too cute. She's rolling over a little bit from her back to her belly. She LOVES to be on her tummy...I let her sleep on it at night because she's so cozy like that (and she sleeps for 12 hours, so I'm afraid to rock the boat!).

Madeline is in full swing of her terrible two's. As sweet and easy going as she is, she's learning to have an opinion about things and knows when she wants her way. Lately, she wants to eat fruit snacks for every meal and she only wants to wear "jammies". She throws a fit whenever I try to dress her, screaming "I wear jammiessssssssss!". So much for the loads of money I have spent at baby Gap over the years :) She wants to be just like Emma and imitates everything she does. She LOVES going to dance class...her favorite part is when they do the "pokey pokey"! I think she knows every kid's song ever created and sings constantly all day long. She is doing a good job going on the potty, but mostly only when she remembers that it will get her an M&M.

Emma, like her mommy is obsessed with holidays!! For a month now, she has been decorating our house and obsessing over Halloween. Every day she arranges the Halloween decorations in new and different ways and begs to go to the store to buy more. She's even started watching a few Martha Stewart episodes on pumpkin carving...no lie! She still can't settle on a Halloween costume..some days she wants to be Little Red Riding Hood with Daddy as the Big Bad Wolf and other days she only wants to be anything that involves the color pink. I think that she's hitting a growth spurt, because after a lifelong battle of trying to shove food down her throat she now eats 2 or 3 peanut butter sandwiches for lunch!! She's really getting a lot more grown up every day and I can tell a big difference in her emotional needs...it's like right now she's trying to figure out the world around her and she really needs to know that she is safe and secure. It's crazy to watch a person go from a little baby to a little girl and I know it's only going to get harder and harder the older she gets. When I look at her and think about the responsibility of raising her I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. I'm going to need a lot of grace to raise three girls...especially when they are all teenagers :)

5k fever!

For years, I have been wanting to start running competitvely again and this weekend I finally did it!!! On Saturday, a few of us from the gym ran in a 5k at Lakes Park to support breast cancer. It was awesome!!! For my first time out I did pretty well, coming in first place in our group and 19th overall. It was a perfect morning, the weather was beautiful and it was fun to run with so many friends. The best part of the race was when I got near the finish line and Ryan and the girls were in the crowd cheering me on :) Emma keeps saying that when she gets big enough, she wants to start running too. I can't wait for that day!! Hopefully this is just the start of many more races to come...my goal is to make it to the Naples half marathon in January. Afterwards, Ryan and Emma stayed at the park for a while to do some fishing. They didn't catch anything, but they had fun trying!